Easy—Amazon customers get lockers at Staples to avoid missed deliveries

Staples have teamed up with Amazon to give the online powerhouse a little brick and mortar feel. According to a Staples' spokeswoman, "Amazon Lockers" will be installed at the company's US stores.

The lockers help Amazon customers avoid the hassle of missed deliveries. Online shoppers can opt to have packages sent to participating stores, and Amazon sends them an e-mail containing a pickup code. The company gives you a three day window to grab a package after it's delivered. Simply take your code to the store locker, enter it on the corresponding touchscreen, and pick up your purchase.

Staples did not provide further details about the service (including time table). Amazon has been operating lockers already at grocery, convenience, and drug stores. In its agreement with Staples, the online giant will pay a small fee to store owners that house the lockers.

Along with their pursuit of "one day delivery" by having warehouses in certain areas - most notably where they're now subject to state sales taxes - will these things constitute a "physical presence?" One would think not, but it's a crazy world.

Maybe they should just charge sales tax instead of dodging it? It's there for a reason, if you don't like it vote out the politicians who put it in place, cheating local merchants in your neighborhood out of sales because they have to charge tax does not help your community.

So, if Staples is smart the natural extension is to have online only specials via Amazon's site with 'same day delivery' to the local Amazon locker. Gets them buying from Staples and puts them in the stores...

This sounds like it could be helpful if it's difficult to get deliveries at both your house and office, which is a situation I've been in before. If only because Staples is going to be open later than any PO or FedEx office.

I've recently found myself wondering who Amazon would buy out to establish a brick & mortar presence. No idea how Staples looks financially, but even short of that, I wonder what other opportunities might arise for the two parties if this succeeds. (Yeah, I'm just full of wild and baseless speculation [call it what you will] tonight.) Amazon is an interesting beast.

From what I understand, Amazon is doing these locker arrangements in states where they already have to charge tax. Basically, when they lost the battle over charging tax, they used it to their advantage and made lemonade.

They have one a 5-minute walk from my house at a 24-hour gas station. Very convenient.

Under what circumstances would someone need this, instead of getting deliveries to your home or office? Not being sarcastic, I'm honestly curious - I can't think of anything.

If taking deliveries at home isn't feasible, you aren't home when the courier delivers, and you don't want to have to go to a huge distribution site to pick up your package because you missed the delivery person three days in a row. Also, Staples (and some of the other Amazon Locker locations) have far more convenient hours than a post office or a distribution center for FedEx / UPS. Also, if you're away from home and need to take a delivery wherever you're visiting (oops I forgot a thank-you gift for my host, or my HDMI cable!).

I just have Amazon deliver to a UPS Store box near my house when I know I'll be busy all day.

Pysgard wrote:

Could you imagine an Amazon Automat? If there is enough spare capacity, just stock empty lockers with popular goods, and some lucky guy ordering something gets his pickup code instantly.

That is a sweet idea.

And they could call it a store.

Too bad right now stores never seem to have in stock what I want and when I want it hence if I'm going to wait 2-3 days then why not buy it online at a cheaper price? this is the problem with retailers where I live, I come in with a couple of grand in my pocket for a laptop and then get told, "sorry, we don't have any in the store but we can order one in" - and why would I want to do that when I could order it online and receive it sooner at a cheaper price. Retailers need to realise that if they're not going to compete on price then their next line of defence should be convenience - I'm willing to pay slightly more for convenience but too bad the retailers can't be figged ensuring they actually have the product in stock on the shelf so I can walk out with it on the same day.

Amazon is already killing 'nice summer day meander in shops'. Music, Books, Video stores. Now main street will be Staples or 7-11 with Amazon lockers ? And its not like Amazon is even a viable business model, they make zero or hardly any profit. Talk about cutting off our collective noses to spite our face.

It's cool the future is here, but I didn't expect it to be so damn ugly once you step outside.

Good to see that, if the postal service can't come up with something people in Denmark, Norway or Germany enjoy for over 10 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packstation, Amazon is finally bringing some infrastructural innovation to the service desert

I hate getting anything from UPS or DHL because I have to be home to accept it, or I´m screwed.

Anything sent via national mail, is delivered via. national mail. So I can just go to the post office to pick it up. I wonder why American companies can't just use USPS so their international customers wouldn't have to deal with the bullshit that is UPS and DHL.

Or even better, GLS once they become available outside EU. They don't even attempt to deliver it, but rather have arrangements with various stores. So you just select which one you want nearby you, and go pick up your package when you're informed of it's arrival (they don't use lockers though).

@Systembolaget

Yeah you're right. We do have that thing you linked, but that's only for the Royal Danish Mail here. I never used it though, but it is very convinient if you want to pick up your package outside the post offices opening hours.

Too bad right now stores never seem to have in stock what I want...this is the problem with retailers where I live, I come in with a couple of grand in my pocket for a laptop and then get told, "sorry, we don't have any in the store but we can order one in"

Bingo! We have a winner! Every time I hear stores complaining about people window shopping at the store and ordering online, I am reminded of all the times I wanted something and could not buy it. Over the weekend I wanted a Windows 8 laptop and got fed up when two different laptops were not in stock. If the store can get display models, why can't they get units to sell? And Barnes and Noble has reduced their store inventory to the point that the business study about their downfall will be called "Out Of Stock" after the message you see when searching their store inventory. The one item I saw that was in stock recently was the Christmas Ideals book for this year, and when I went to get it they didn't have it - it was in a box somewhere, and the entire store just shrugged because no one could get the item out of the box and sell it to me.

It's an interesting idea, but personally I'd rather see delivery companies with greater flexibility on specifying when they'll aim to arrive (day or even a time window), or options for receiving alerts when your package is estimated to arrive so you can nip home from work to collect it or whatever.

It'd also be nice to see delivery companies trying harder; I work from home so I'm at home nearly all the time, yet the number of incredibly quiet delivery guys I've had is astonishing, or the ones that ring the doorbell and seemingly expect me to answer within 10 seconds before they're gone.

I suppose one of the advantages however is that with a locker system it saves on fuel for delivery, as vans are (hopefully) not delivering individual parcels to a store. I'm not sure about the Amazon specific nature though; personally I'd like something similar for any delivery service, providing it's something that would fit in those lockers obviously.

Under what circumstances would someone need this, instead of getting deliveries to your home or office? Not being sarcastic, I'm honestly curious - I can't think of anything.

I live in an apartment and I have to play the guessing game every time I get a package. Is it going to be at the door, is it going to be at the apt. office, is it going to be at the post office? Then I also have to deal with my package sitting in a hallway until I get home from work. I can see myself using something like this.

Maybe they should just charge sales tax instead of dodging it? It's there for a reason, if you don't like it vote out the politicians who put it in place, cheating local merchants in your neighborhood out of sales because they have to charge tax does not help your community.

Its not Amazon's responsibility to charge tax unless they have a retail presence in the state in which you live. The way the laws are written, it's *your* responsibility to pay the sales tax to your local/state government for purchases made out of state and shipped to you.

Since you feel so strongly about this, when was the last time you (Zinger1) stroked a check for sales tax and mailed it to your state treasury for something you bought online?

Yeah you're right. We do have that thing you linked, but that's only for the Royal Danish Mail here. I never used it though, but it is very convinient if you want to pick up your package outside the post offices opening hours.

Danish mail is better than Swedish mail

But the real benefit, as I see it, is that you can receive and send fairly sizeable items any hour, any day, without having to queue up, visit weird shops or ask neighbours if they sit on your parcel since days...

I currently rent a UPS store box so I can get stuff delivered while I am away from home, no office deliveries allowed at my work. If everything I ordered came from Amazon, and the boxes were as convenient to my home this might be useful. But not everything is from Amazon, and my UPS Store also accepts truck freight, which can be vary handy, if I do not want to take a day off work. Downside is the monthly box fees.

Under what circumstances would someone need this, instead of getting deliveries to your home or office? Not being sarcastic, I'm honestly curious - I can't think of anything.

I live in an apartment where I cannot get deliveries unless it is from USPS, (none of the other couriers have keys to get into the front door obviously). So therefore I had to open up a UPS PO Box so I could get deliveries, which is convenient because I just walk over a block during lunch and get my stuff.

Amazon is already killing 'nice summer day meander in shops'. Music, Books, Video stores. Now main street will be Staples or 7-11 with Amazon lockers ? And its not like Amazon is even a viable business model, they make zero or hardly any profit. Talk about cutting off our collective noses to spite our face.

It's cool the future is here, but I didn't expect it to be so damn ugly once you step outside.

Do you have any data to backup the unviable business model of Amazon? For a company that has been around for some years, keeps buying out smaller companies, and growing and growing... I find it hard to believe they are not making a profit somewhere.

I think it would be interesting if someone (Amazon, or one of their brick-and-mortar competitors) developed a sort of hybrid online/offline store. Basically, have a traditional store that keeps some commonly purchased items in stock, but also has a rapid delivery service from a warehouse with a wider selection. You could order stuff online like Amazon, buy stuff locally, or "preview order" items to your local store and have them delivered from the warehouse to the store within 6 hours, so you could compare them in person and decide which (if any) you actually wanted to buy. Obviously they would need to put some limits on this to prevent abuse.

It seems like it would be much easier to establish a rapid delivery time if there were regularly scheduled trucks continually shuttling between the warehouse and the store instead of trying to deliver to any arbitrary address (which would require intermediate stops and sorting facilities, and a lot more trucks).

Amazon is already killing 'nice summer day meander in shops'. Music, Books, Video stores. Now main street will be Staples or 7-11 with Amazon lockers ? And its not like Amazon is even a viable business model, they make zero or hardly any profit. Talk about cutting off our collective noses to spite our face.

It's cool the future is here, but I didn't expect it to be so damn ugly once you step outside.

Do you have any data to backup the unviable business model of Amazon? For a company that has been around for some years, keeps buying out smaller companies, and growing and growing... I find it hard to believe they are not making a profit somewhere.

It seems like a lot of people have an attitude that a business is a failure if it doesn't have a huge profit margin. The ability to survive (and even grow) with a slim profit margin should be seen as a sign of efficiency in my opinion. Isn't this the core of the argument in favor of capitalism: that competition produces the most efficient use of resources?

The retail market is quite competitive (particularly compared to the ISP market, for example), and Amazon is successful because their efficiency lets them operate reliably with slim margins and low costs. If someone else finds a more efficient retail distribution model, Amazon will have to adapt or lose their dominant position.

Slim profit margins are the proper result of a competitive market, because providers of the goods or services will keep undercutting each other to gain or keep business, until the constraints of profitability stop them. It's only in markets with relatively low competition (high barriers of entry) that producers can charge huge margins.